Goodbye, Catholic Moment

In his column today, Ross Douthat — who, you should know, is an orthodox Catholic — observes the end of what the late Fr. Neuhaus once called “the Catholic Moment,” a time in which Catholics, once marginalized in American society, could make their mark on public life by bringing a distinctly Catholic vision to bear on our affairs. That’s definitely over now, says Douthat. More:

The fact that the Second Vatican Council had left the church internally divided limited Catholic influence in some ways but magnified it in others. Because the church’s divisions often mirrored the country’s, a politician who captured the typical Catholic voter was probably well on his way to victory, and so would-be leaders of both parties had every incentive to frame their positions in Catholic-friendly terms. The church might not always be speaking with one voice, but both left and right tried to borrow its language.

If this era is now passing, and Catholic ideas are becoming more marginal to our politics, it’s partially because institutional Christianity is weaker over all than a generation ago, and partially because Catholicism’s leaders have done their part, and then some, to hasten that de-Christianization. Any church that presides over a huge cover-up of sex abuse can hardly complain when its worldview is regarded with suspicion. The present pope has too often been scapegoated for the sex abuse crisis, but America’s bishops have if anything gotten off too easily, and even now seem insufficiently chastened for their sins.

The recent turn away from Catholic ideas has also been furthered by a political class that never particularly cared for them in the first place. Even in a more unchurched America, a synthesis of social conservatism and more egalitarian-minded economic policies could have a great deal of mass appeal. But our elites seem mostly relieved to stop paying lip service to the Catholic synthesis: professional Republicans are more libertarian than their constituents, professional Democrats are more secular than their party’s rank-and-file, and professional centrists get their encyclicals from Michael Bloomberg rather than the Vatican.

I think Ross is right, up to a point. It is too convenient to blame the execrable behavior of the bishops in the abuse scandal for the end of the Catholic moment (to be clear, Ross is not doing that here, only pointing to that behavior as a contributing factor; I know some readers will not be so discerning). The rotten behavior of the bishops, among others, hastened the decline of Catholic authority in American life, but if we’re honest, we will have to admit that even if the bishops had been luminous saints to the man, the second coming of the Apostles, things wouldn’t be all that different from where they stand today.

The fact of the matter is that Roman Catholic Christianity (also Orthodox Christianity, and some forms of Protestantism) cannot be reconciled with the expressive individualism that is the hallmark of late modern civilization. Spiked editor Brendan O’Neill, a former Catholic turned atheist, lamented Pope Benedict’s resignation as a kind of capitulation to our degraded culture:

What the resignation really points to – or rather what the congratulatory reaction reveals – is how uncomfortable our society is with the idea of vocation. In the back-slapping for Benedict we’re really witnessing the breathing of a mass, global sigh of relief that pretty much the last institution which elevates its own needs over the needs of its occupant, which demands unwavering, total, literally Christ-like commitment, has now allowed the reality of frailty to creep into its hallowed halls. Today’s fashionable allergy to the pope, and to the Catholic Church more broadly, is driven more by a petit-bourgeois disdain for firm commitment to a cause and belief in something bigger than ourselves than it is by a grown-up critique of Catholic theology. Ours is an era in which people are implored to cultivate their self-esteem, or to focus obsessively on preserving their bovine physical wellbeing, rather than to give themselves fully to a cause or a mission or even another individual. We’re so hostile to the idea of vocation, and to its underpinning: commitment, that we have pathologised self-sacrifice, now referring to it as the psychological ailment of ‘co-dependency’: ‘placing a lower priority on one’s own needs while being excessively preoccupied with the needs of others.’ In such a narcissistic era, where ‘one’s own needs’ are everything, the idea of a man remaining married to his mission forever is extraordinarily alien, and so we cheer like crazy when even the moral descendant of St Peter elevates his own physical wellbeing over his devotion to something bigger.

I don’t think that’s a fair judgment of Benedict’s act, or an accurate consideration of his motives, but I take O’Neill’s general point, and it’s akin to Ross’s more generous (to Benedict) conclusion in his blog reaction to the papal abdication:

Yet these benefits need to be balanced against the longer term difficulties that this precedent creates for the papacy’s role within the church. There is great symbolic significance in the fact that popes die rather than resign: It’s a reminder that the pontiff is supposed to be a spiritual father more than a chief executive (presidents leave office, but your parents are your parents till they die), a sign of absolute papal surrender to the divine will (after all, if God wants a new pope, He’ll get one), and a illustration of the theological point that the church is still supposed to be the church even when its human leadership isn’t at fighting trim, whether physically or intellectually or (for that matter) morally.

Leaving Benedict’s resignation aside, who will argue with O’Neill that our culture is hostile to the idea of vocation — and, more broadly, with the idea of sacrificing individual desire to higher truths, or causes? Our entire culture is built around the apotheosis of the Self, of the self’s will, the self’s desires, the self’s autonomy. This has required a progressive liberation of the Self from rules, mores, institutions, and customs that bind the Self. We are well within a cultural era in which truth is believed — whether or not people recognize it — to be determined by emotion far more than reason.

I don’t entirely condemn this, because in some cases, it has resulted in a more humane condition, and in any case I am as personally formed by and implicated in this condition as anybody else. The point here is neither to condemn nor to praise, but simply to recognize it for what it is. This is not something temporary or sudden, but rather the culmination of centuries of social development in the West. Philosopher Charles Taylor, in A Secular Age, writes of the rise of “expressive individualism” as central to our collective understanding of the moral order now embedded in our culture. Taylor observes that the emergence of expressive individualism — that is, the emancipation of the Self — has been a gradual process in the West since the Enlightenment, but really took off after World War II, and, with the Sexual Revolution, became general in society. “This is obviously a profound shift,” he writes. He describes the religious manifestation of this shift thus:

The religious life or practice that I become part of must not only be my choice, but it must speak to me, it must make sense in terms of my spiritual development as I understand this. This takes us farther. The choice of denomination was understood to take place within a fixed cadre, say that of the apostles’ creed, the faith of the broader “church”. Within this framework of belief, I choose the church in which I feel most comfortable. But if the focus is going now to be on my spiritual path, thus on what insights come to me in the subtler languages that I find meaningful, then maintaining this or any other framework becomes increasingly difficult.

The end result of this process has been the severing of what was widely considered to be the necessary connection between faith and civilizational order. Taylor says religious conservatives still assume this connection, and much of their (our) political anxiety is a reaction to this cultural revolution.

This is why, on same-sex marriage, both sides talk past each other. We religious conservatives believe that the secular order must be dictated by the sacred order, however attenuated. Many others — most others, I would say — believe that there is no such thing as a sacred order, at least not one knowable to and share-able by all. The desiring Self is the sacred thing — something I say not as a criticism, but as an observation. In this worldview — which I believe is thoroughly mainstream — to deny the legitimacy of the Self’s desires is felt as a denial of personhood, and of rights. The moral order, then, must be built around the ongoing expansion of individual rights, especially when it comes to sex and sexuality, because Truth emerges from the individual’s heart, not from an external source of authority, such as the Catholic Church. We can’t have a meaningful conversation because we cannot agree on the source of moral order.

I’ve gone a bit far afield here, so I’ll close with this conclusion: there never was a possibility for a Catholic moment in America. Not even American Catholics agree on what it means to be Catholic, and what is required of them as Catholics. From the outside, Catholicism looks unitary, but from the inside, Catholicism (in America, at least) is just about as fragmented as Protestantism. This is why you have the spectacle of Garry Wills denying the sacramental priesthood and the Real Presence, but still presenting himself as a Catholic, and being received by many Catholics as Catholic. Catholicism in this country has lost its distinctives, because many, probably most, actual Catholics have no sense that the faith they profess calls them to accept and to live by a set of theological and moral precepts that they may struggle to accept, but must accept because God revealed them authoritatively through His church.

One may say this is a good thing, this Protestantization of Catholicism, or one may decry it as a bad thing. But I don’t see how one can credibly say that it doesn’t exist. Catholicism, understood on its own terms, is radically opposed to American culture, and to the essence of modernity. Catholicism, as understood by most American Catholics, is not. There’s the problem with the Catholic moment, and why it was never going to happen. Of course, the behavior of the bishops in the abuse crisis didn’t help, but ultimately it was beside the point.

Though no longer a Catholic, I would have dearly loved to have seen a Catholic moment. The thing for non-Catholic Christians to understand is that we are past the point of there being a “Christian Moment,” in the Neuhausian sense. Many Christians don’t understand this yet, but they will.

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104 Responses to Goodbye, Catholic Moment

I can see no reason whatsoever that there should be a distinctly Catholic vision in our civic affairs, nor that there should be ANY “Catholic authority in daily life.”

That’s not because VOCATION is without meaning. But vocation is not a mass phenomenon. It is, in origin quite individual, just me and God, if vocations come from God, which I think they often do.

Quakers undoubtedly contribute to their individual participation in public life the moral perspective their faith provides them with, but they do not do so en masse as Quaker authority in public life. Catholics, of course, may and should do the same, as should Buddhists, Lutherans, Methodists, Muslims, and Iroquois who follow the Old Way codified by Handsome Lake.

Its the institutional “Catholic moment” that clashes unavoidably with the entire tenor of republican government.

But I wouldn’t say you are “implicated” Rod. You are accountable to God for your choices. The available institutions and traditions are something we each have to find a home in, if we can, and hope for some measure of grace if our ignorant choices turn out to be somewhat wrong.

“The desiring Self is the sacred thing — something I say not as a criticism, but as an observation. In this worldview — which I believe is thoroughly mainstream — to deny the legitimacy of the Self’s desires is felt as a denial of personhood, and of rights.”

The triumph of the Self isn’t a unique feature of current culture. It’s part of human nature. It’s how institutional Christianity has always conducted itself, not because institutional Christianity is especially bad, but because institutions are composed of fallible humans who see the speck in others’ eyes but not the beam in their own. Jesus could have predicted that institutional Christianity would spend two thousand years justifying itself, then despair over the ‘rise of the culture of the Self’ when institutional Christianity’s victims finally achieve the same sexual autonomy it had always granted itself.

We are coming to a common realization of an insight Chesterton had a century ago, that Christendom is over. The extent to which we failed to realize this fact is the extent to which we sought too assiduously to become part of the “in crowd.” Of course, this was understandable. it is cold out on the fringes of a society, especially a society of abundance, and especially in a society that was hostile to Catholic/Orthodox worldviews to begin with. But there are contradictions inherent in that society and its very laudable abundance, as we now see as society decays into various theologies of the pleasure principle.

Wow, that was very good post M.P. Ryan.

Ironically the fading of the Catholic Church will taken hardest by those who, while they grew up Catholic, were her biggest critics. They might have gone to Catholic grammar school and maybe even off to Georgetown or Boston College. But they grew out of out of Catholicism, out of religion in general, and became libertine and liberal. They are the types that quickly brief you on their cradle Catholic credentials before attacking the Church. These types take great comfort in the Catholic Church just being there even though they never darken the door and maintain their overt contempt for her practices. Just like the parent they didn’t have time for and whom they chastised for holding narrow and prejudiced views. But they took great comfort in knowing their parent was out there. But soon enough their parent will no longer be around, or if they are, they will not be the same, they will be diminished. At that point they would give anything for the steady, gentle, and loving counsel they had no use for.

Judith says:
February 17, 2013 at 6:12 pm
“[Note from Rod: Being a Christian is my vocation…. for my family instead of my career, or what I wanted to do. — RD] ”

This helped me understand what you are saying, better than everything else you have said put together.
j
Note Judith – Rod has described what we as married Christian men are encouraged to do by Saint Paul in Ephesians 5: 21-32. Unfortunately, most Christian men and women are no longer aware of this vocation, as the feminists will have no talk about wives being submissive to their husbands. They fail to listen past verse 23, but if they did they would see that Paul ups the ante considerably in verse 25 where men are commanded to die for their wives, both in desire and if necessary, in body – “husbands love you wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed himself over for her”. As men we are required to die to ourselves for our wives and children. Rod’s Christianity has brought him towards an understanding of this great wisdom that the secular world cannot fathom.

The acceptance of Catholics by the political and cultural mainstream has been a disaster for Catholic institutions. Catholic schools, universities, hospitals and charities have been emptied of mission and most of them are distinguished from their non-Catholic counterparts by nothing worth mentioning.

Kind of the way that the end of racial segregation meant in many instances the end of the separate institutions that black Americans had built up for generations: black physicians, lawyers, and other professionals who catered to a largely black clientele, and thus served as the foundation of black middle class; black colleges and universities, that educated those who weren’t accepted elsewhere; black athletic organizations that gave opportunities to players who were denied those opportunities elsewhere.

Historically black colleges and universities have managed to hang on, at least to an extent, but that’s about it. The end of segregation in major league baseball was a great and historic event, and the black players who were able to play in the major leagues deserved that opportunity.

But what happened to the Negro Leagues after major league baseball skimmed off the best players? They sputtered along and eventually went out of business. So the players who weren’t snatched by major league teams ended up without even the opportunity they once had.

Yes, segregation is a bad thing. But people subjected to segregation tend to create their own cultural goods in response to it. The end of segregation, while good in itself, leads to the end of all that, and something worthwhile is lost.

The same is true, I think, of the loss of Catholic institutions in response to greater integration of Catholics into the larger society. I’m 50, so I probably grew up at the very tail end of the period where it was possible to grow up in a Catholic bubble — or ghetto, if you prefer — where you not only lived in the same neighborhood as people in your parish, but most of the people you did business with — the grocer, the shoe repairman, the dry cleaner, the car dealer — were Catholic, and often a member of your parish.

Whenever American society has begun to mainstream a religious group, it at the same time begins to mainstream an organized criticism of that group’s salient undesired characteristic. It’s not a coincidence that the ACLU and strong political support for church-state separationism and strong secularism arose at just about the same time as Catholicism and Orthodoxy began to gain mainstream acceptance after WW1. Or that naturalism and universalism became popularly respectable as Judaism became respectable after WW2. Or how nontheism and nontheist religion (varieties of Buddhism) became mainstream as Islam, Hinduism, and other major non-European theisms entered the mainstream in 1968 or so. And atheism/areligionism enters the mainstream with the mainstreaming of all the remaining unpopular/unrespected religious groups in the mid-1990s.

The short version is that Americans have always countered any particular religious vision with an organized skepticism of that vision. Members of particular religious groups have had periods of achieving high status and articulating their group’s vision. But Americans at large have never been persuaded that any particular religious vision truly exceeds, let along supercedes, the others for long.

Frankly, the record is that Americans use religions instrumentally. We adopted or created kinds for particular historical situations. And when destructive or no longer useful we abandon or (in some cases) crushed them.

Leaving Benedict’s resignation aside, who will argue with O’Neill that our culture is hostile to the idea of vocation — and, more broadly, with the idea of sacrificing individual desire to higher truths, or causes? Our entire culture is built around the apotheosis of the Self, of the self’s will, the self’s desires, the self’s autonomy. This has required a progressive liberation of the Self from rules, mores, institutions, and customs that bind the Self. We are well within a cultural era in which truth is believed — whether or not people recognize it — to be determined by emotion far more than reason.

No, that’s not it. Vocations are fine- you’re allowed to sacrifice yourself on any altar you feel called to. You’re not permitted to drag other people onto the altar you claim and sacrifice them to your deity, of whatever name, though.

Your broad interpretation overfocusses on the psyche (‘Self’) as determinant of reality and lacks the interactive reality of life in the world and time/history. If one steps back what is happening is more empirically that people are being given the opportunity to grow, heal, mature themselves to ever larger degrees of the immaturities, traumas, disputes, deprivations, false selfserving mythologies and other social baggage imposed upon them. Which are the ugly legacies of the pre-Modern condition. It ain’t pretty- there’s a lot of bad baggage there and few create or keep a clear sense of their real condition in the midst of the mess of slowly and painfully losing it.

Frankly, when people were highly aware of the horrible baggage they were given and still carry and how much of it they are inflicting or will inflict on their children and other people they tend to utterly despair and wilt in shame. Most- perhaps all- must operate with defensive illusions and defensive blamings and defensive denialisms. As individuals we can do so with some success, but as a collective we have to operate with at least empirical truth of experience in most things.

Beyond that, it’s not clear to me that the notion of Self asserted in the argument is that of normal or abnormal psychology. I don’t think the claims of de facto nihilism and absolute narcissism made are compatible with normal psychology, I’ll leave it at that.

I don’t think Reason unaided by revelation can give us first principles, though. What I find deeply frustrating is how many liberals assume that their viewpoint is neutral, and that Christian conservatives are guilty of special pleading.

How is standing on authority of some particular subjective revelations- especially those of people long ago and now dead- not special pleading where common experience is normative?

What I find frustrating about conservatives is inability to accept that truth attained by definitive elimination of alternatives is reliable. Equality as a doctrine is perhaps not derivable positively except by grand imagination or Divine revelation, but it can be derived from the study and experience of the consequences of Inequality as a doctrine. Justice, Health, Sanity, Charity, Beauty etc. similarly.

Churchianity spends its time inventing ridiculously complicated theories with obscure terms of art as to why it’s entitled to be cruel to a whole class of people, and fretting about its historical moment? No surprise there.

The time is getting late. Our lives our finite. Thomas Merton was electrocuted accidentally in a bathroom in Bangkok. A student in a city I live in accidentally fell out of a window while attending a graduation party and died, a couple days ago.

“Leaving Benedict’s resignation aside, who will argue with O’Neill that our culture is hostile to the idea of vocation — and, more broadly, with the idea of sacrificing individual desire to higher truths, or causes?”

Here he speaks about Republican ideology. Liberals have a far greater understanding of vocation since many liberals choose careers based specifically on the notion of a calling, whether it be teacher, Doctor, nurse, writer, musician, etc.

“Catholicism, understood on its own terms, is radically opposed to American culture, and to the essence of modernity.” I find this to be a tendentious statement. The word Catholic means universal, and one defining aspect of American culture is its universiality, which is why Catholics are in every culture and nation, and every culture and nationality make up America. As to modernity, its essence itself is in its universiality.

I understand many Americans are cafeteria style Catholics, they embrace some teachings and reject others and I know that there are some Catholics who are agnostic (even Athiest) who adhere to the Church (not its leadership but its tradition) because it is a rock of stability, I think Dreher and Douthat don’t understand what for most is the essense of the church, which is in the ritual of the Mass, its message of forgiveness and redemption and how it is the exact same worldwide and has been so for millenia. There is nothing do it yourself about it, which is what you see in many evangelical faiths. Like America, the idea of the church is something beyond the self. I find evangelicals concept of beyond the self to be nothing more than looking into a mirror and believing you are looking at God.

It is sad in their fanaticism to the cult of Ayn Randian selfishness (though they dress it up as a form of morality) the Republican party has lost its way. Liberals (at least sincere ones) far more adhere to the Christian concept of do unto the least of ones brother as one would do unto oneself. Republicans just label the least of those brothers as parasitic takers.

Me: “(note: the Church closing these voluntarily rather than comply with secular laws it doesn’t like, is not the same as “being forced to close”, so please don’t bring in that false equivalence)”

Richard Parker: It’s not? Seems about the same to me. “Your schools and hospitals can stay open as long as they are exactly the same as the public institutions except that you can mumble prayers and display cricifixes (for now).”

Nobody is commanding they be “exactly the same”, other than display of crucifixes; indeed many of these institutions are not the same at all. And many of them qualify for ministerial exceptions. (Other such institutions are little different than their secular equivalents, certainly–my kids were born at a Catholic hospital, and there the main clue that it was such a place was the “St.” in the facility’s name, and the Virgin Mary statues in the lobby…)

That said–in many cases, an express purpose of religious institutions is to serve (and thereby witness to) the public. Which is hard to do, methinks, if you decide that certain members of the public are not worthy of such witness or services.

Broadly speaking, you should be happy that sinners darken the door of your church or hospital or social service agency; one or two might decide to stick around. None of them will if you turn them away.

Re: The Reformation was the beginning of modernity precisely inasmuch it rejected such synthesis.

Huh? That’s not right at all. The Reformation was the child of the Renaissance’s rediscovery of the Greek language and its surviving source texts, which went to the heads of Western scholars like high proof liquor. It was not a rejection at all, but rather a reinterpretation. As an Orthodox Christian I obviously think they got it wrong (but then I think that horse had been out of the barn in the West for quite a few centuries). But as an iconic example, Luther redesigned clerical vestments as similar to university professor robes– not Jewish rabbis’ garb.

“Broadly speaking, you should be happy that sinners darken the door of your church or hospital or social service agency; one or two might decide to stick around. None of them will if you turn them away.”

The Sinners are welcomed in. They just don’t get to select the sermon or the staff.

3 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves,

lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power.

JonF said: “School teachers (public or private) who have inappropriate sexual relations with students are almost always fired from their jobs (and no, tenure does not protect against serious malfeasance like that) when/if the matter becomes public knowledge.” +but it was the Church’s deliberate attempt to cover up its abuse

Oh, you mean, if we have deliberate attempts to cover up abuse in the school system, then it’s OK? It’s only a problem when we have a deliberate problem of sexual misconduct cover-up in the CC? And just how do you know how many actual cover-ups in schools are there or have ever existed?

While all this talk about the “culture of self” certainly has a lot of significance in the decline of religious authority in our age, I think focusing on that as the cause is missing the point. Where did this culture of self come from in the first place? I would say one has to look at the broader problem with the “revelatory” origins of religious authority, and that is the empirical revolution.

I may be a broken record on this subject, but the origin of all these problems is the rise of empiricism over the last few centuries, which by its very nature gives us an “observing self” that must evaluate evidence, come to conclusions, and make decisions on that basis about the world we live in. And I’m not just talking about the scientific community, but everyone. The scientific posture has become the leading edge of social and culture life, not in the form of scientific knowledge itself, but in the attitude of looking at the world with fresh eyes, seeing the evidence before us, and coming to conclusions, and making decisions, on that basis, rather than on the basis of religious revelations contained in books and traditions.

This has led to more than just a new view of cosmology and nature, it’s led to a new view of oneself, as the observer of these, and the arbiter of what is true. In the old days, to find out what was true, all you had to do was look to the scriptures, or Church authorities, and they would tell you. Now, that’s just not how people approach even ordinary problems for the most part. They look to observe what’s going on themselves, or read what others have observed, and put together a “picture” of the world on that basis. That’s not compatible with the religious mode of thought, not just because it reaches different conclusions, but because it requires a whole different psyche. It requires that we be active observers and actors, experimenters in an active relationship to the world around us, rather than as passive receivers of the “received wisdom”. The very term is now anathema to most people, a disabling criticism, rather than a term of praise.

If you want to know where the modern self came from, it’s from empiricism of the most down-home variety. High end empiricism has likewise given us all the goods and services of modern life, and they have together created an almost unbreakable web of mutual support. The consumer self is no different from the scientific self, as we experiment and discover which products are best suited for our needs. Without that empirical self, there would be no crisis of religion in our time. With it, it’s almost impossible to see religion surviving much longer in its present form.

The present age demands not just a consumer religion, but a religion which is subject to experiment, to observation of the world and our own inner life with equal measure, and to modification based upon what is observed and evaluated. That means revelation is no longer the criteria by which a religion can sustain itself. It has to locate first principles within the empirical world, that make sense to an empirical self, or it will just fade away into irrelevancy. That’s the challenge traditional religion faces, and I don’t think it’s up to it. It may hold to its revealed truths for as long as it likes, but fewer and fewer people will pay much heed to it, even among the community of believers, who hold onto it more as a form of nostalgic support, than something they can actually proclaim to be true.

> who will argue with O’Neill that our culture is hostile to[…]
> the idea of sacrificing individual desire to higher truths, or
> causes?

I don’t entirely agree with you: e.g. both Democrats and Republicans still maintain active grassroots organizations. Obama was elected twice thanks to hardworking volunteers who believed in “the cause.”

> Our entire culture is built around the apotheosis of the
> Self, of the self’s will, the self’s desires, the self’s
> autonomy. This has required a progressive liberation of
> the Self from rules, mores, institutions, and customs
> that bind the Self.

On the other hand, we still tend to obey the applicable judicial laws and regulations. It’s not clear to me the U.S. has more corruption or that the country is “lawless” compared with WW II America.

> We are well within a cultural era in which truth is
> believed — whether or not people recognize it — to be
> determined by emotion far more than reason.

No. Truth should be determined by empirical fact / scientific reason. If you cannot provide solid, tangible evidence supporting your claims that same sex marriage will hurt society, then your opposition is driven by superstition and emotion rather than reason.

…no one who does not really really take himself seriously as a Christian is going to make a decision based on the teachings of Christianity, no matter how it is defined. For the bulk of the population, no matter what they may tell pollsters, Christian teaching is not relevant.

Charles, then how do you explain tens of millions of American Christians who not only take Christ’s view of Himself (as the ultimate atoning sacrifice to redeem humanity) seriously but, as a result, embrace Him as “Lord and Savior” and choose to live their lives (however imperfectly and as best as they know how) in accordance with those teachings?

Moreover, your comment completely ignores the idea that the Holy Spirit — the third Person of the Triune God — acts as a Comforter and Advocate for believers (see John 14, for starters). That is a fundamental aspect of the life of faith.

Let me say that taking Christ seriously is a far, far different thing than taking the extended teachings of any particular denomination seriously. One can do the latter without doing the former; clerical sex-abuse crises in Catholicism, Orthodoxy and other Christian churches prove that.

The problem is that so many modern Christian intellectuals have been so busy becoming “modern” that they effectively cease to become “Christian.” To them, Christianity is nothing but a brand name that defines a world view, rather than a relationship with a loving God Who desires such a relationship far more than we do.

If being anti-intellectual is your concern, Charles, let me state that the answer to anti-intellectuality is not hyper-intellectuality, which infects many within Catholicism, Orthodoxy and mainline Protestantism.

You provide a very thorough and compelling analysis. I think you went further than Mr. Douthat was willing (or able?) to go. The sex abuse scandal is certainly not the primary cause of the Catholic moment’s sputtering out; America’s foundational fixation with liberty to whatever ends is. In fact, it’s a minor miracle that something like a Catholic moment even sprang up at all in the first place.

Your points about the Protestantization of Catholicism are, of course, spot on. Here’s the conclusion of my view of the whole thing, which I have posted on my blog:

“Catholicism, which is distinct from Protestantism and other forms of religion in that is not a private preference and acknowledges the legitimacy of a non-governmental institution’s authority, will more often-than-not find it difficult to express itself in American politics, at least in a comprehensive way. Indeed, America has never been too friendly to Catholics, and the acceptance of Catholics over the past century is perhaps more a testament to what American Catholicism has become than of anything else.

What Neuhaus calls the “gradual but certain sociological accommodation to a Protestant ethos” is simply a fancy way of saying that Catholics are acting more like Protestants. Religion is increasingly viewed by Catholics as something that can and should be confined to their homes and churches, a process helped along by a federal government all too eager to create what Neuhaus terms “the naked public square.” As the Church and its influence are sequestered from the public sphere as an “illegitimate” and “non-consented” authority, what one’s Catholicism consists of is entirely up to the individual adherent; not only is one’s association with the Church completely voluntary, but so is his or her acceptance of particular Church teachings. The individual is free to create God and His Church in his or her own self-interested image.

Of course, this is no accident. This is a fundamental characteristic of American political philosophy, a philosophy that finds its roots in a very Protestant concept of liberty that necessarily involves the privatization of religious belief. The process of relegating religion to nothing more than a private preference is something that has been centuries in the making, but as Neuhaus claims, it’s a process that has certainly accelerated over the past half-century.

It’s difficult to determine a starting point of the “Protestantization of Catholics,” and indeed, that’s not necessarily what I’m intending to do in this particular essay. But it seems undoubtedly the case that Vatican II played an important role in polarizing American Catholics, dividing them and pushing them deeper into the blind alleys on either end of the political spectrum. And once comfortably in the clutches of America’s two political parties, one devoted to economic libertarianism, the other to social relativism, American Catholics lost sight of who they were, to the point where prominent Catholic politicians of today are seemingly no more Catholic in their politics than their Protestant counter-parts. What better testament to this sad truth than this past year’s vice presidential debate, where one participant was an unapologetic supporter of abortion rights, the other was (once[?]) an admirer of Ayn Rand, and both were practicing Catholics?

In fact, in light of our current political context, it’s a small miracle that a Catholic moment occurred at all, however briefly. Such assertions of holistic Catholic thought into the mainstream of American politics seem almost certainly to be the exception rather than the rule. Nevertheless, let us celebrate this most recent Catholic moment for what it was, and begin our task of bringing about the next one. For as Fr. Neuhaus reminds us, such a movement does not begin with our politicians or even our leaders in the Church, but with a public that is “fully and vibrantly” Catholic.”

If it’s really the age of fulfillment of the self, then, hey dude, where’s my JOB?

There have been any number of “Catholic Moments” on our Supreme Court, with nary a Protestant, a majority of Catholics and minority Jewish jurisprudence. That’s really quite remarkable, almost as much so as having a President who does not even resemble a WASP (well at least not physically).

I am quite amazed that so many critics of Catholocism and Christianity seem to have no knowledge the primary purposes and practices of either.

They select some possible hierachical error or some other ailment and declare all is lost as to their purpose, practices and contributions. Most it seems consider Christ a teacher, philosopher, reformer or social worker. After salvation, all believers are tasked with sharing Christ and part of that sharing has entailed service. The history of sacrifice and service by members of Christian practice isn’t a secret. The entire educational system now practiced is largely due to the dogmatic and persistent record keeping of the Catholic Church. Catholics and Christians are primary contributers to modern science, especially archeological history. The modern library is due in no small part to Catholocism. Medical sciences, nursing social services as we know them in the United States are built on the foundations of service rooted in charity. The modern legal system, rights for the poor, defense lawyers, etc. Catholics didn’t abandon Aristotelian reasoning. The entire basis of Christian thought, belief and teaching is founded on injustice. And while it was Hebreew/Jewish political intrigue that brought him before Pilate, a secualrist (I think). It was the Roman system which found that Christ was innocent. Flogged, and ultimately murdered because the secularists had not the courage to release the man with whom they found no fault.

Plagued with all manner of self ills, Catholics/Christians have forged a solid, effective and deep history of servicing the poor, the infirm, thse who suffer injustice and while Christendom has stumbled as people do — The same organization that authored the inquisition authored catholic charities and medical services in some of the world’s most hostile environments. And a thorough examination of of social services will find their ranks filled with people of faith as their chosen profession.

The complaints against christianity are by large complaints of soem personal disagreement.

The last time I was visted by an aetheist asking me if I needed anything was . . . . never. I don’t put much stock in the arguments that there is some global network trafficing men and women for sex or labor, but on the front lines of these issues are religious organizations duped or not they are and have been the most effective embassadors for US interests. But that is another discussion. The historical record supports that Catholocism/Christianity have served more people in more places of need on the ground in your face need — the dirty work, such that if they disappeared tomorrow, the US, would be a much dicier place to live (in my view).

I’ve traveled and read quite a bit, and you definitely overstate the case that the Catholic Church has been “protestantized.” This is not to say that there are vast ideological differences among Catholics in this country–there are. But the precise difference between the Catholic Church and the 27000+ versions of protestantism is that despite the differences, we DO come together in the Eucharist. Certainly not all, but a substantial majority of practicing Catholics DO agree with the basic doctrines, or at least what they understand. Catholics that disagree do sometimes leave, but for the most part if they don’t agree with a certain doctrine, they don’t join (let alone form!) a new church, but they stop practicing altogether or they just carp annoyingly to register their disagreements while still attending Sunday Mass.

a) first of all the ‘insult’ if there was one was addressed to Damon Linker’s imaginary reconstruction of history (tracing back heterosexual marriage to religious revelation; even a non-specialist should be aware of the fact that the roots of western jurisprudence on CIVIL marriage lie essentially in Roman law, and that the Roman notion of matrimonium has little to do with religious revelation, but merely accounts for the fact that women can get pregnant and men cannot.)

b) But next you replied

“I think I agree with you here, insofar as Reason can lead us, from first principles, to certain conclusions. I don’t think Reason unaided by revelation can give us first principles, though.”

and I think you conceded more that you should have. It is true that reason needs first principles, and it is true that in some important sense revelation aids reason. But it is not true that Reason cannot judiciously select first principles and try to build on them. Socrates and Plato (and Confucius) did it, for example. And the Fathers of the Church did not reject their effort. They though that faith was the fulfillment, not the replacement, of the efforts of reason.

Now, modern culture (the US in particular because of its particular Protestant and pragmatist tradition) is nominalistic (no intellectual intuition of universal first principles), scientistic (reason as primarily empirical), fideistic (faith means believing without reason). This makes it if not ‘impossible’ certainly ‘damn difficult’ to critique modernity, because as soon you try to make some general reasoning (say, about the purposes of civil marriage legislation) you will be immediately accused of expressing a personal preference due to your-own religion-motivated ‘first principles.’

At that point, every dialogue is impossible, and all that matters is who has the most powerful propaganda apparatus that can brainwash a majority of voters.

Hoo, where to begin. As a late convert to Catholicism (from Buddhism of all things) I have a slightly different perspective. The Catholic Church does not serve the public, she serves God. That is the equation these articles and many of these comments are missing. Catholic moment is an optical illusion seen by Americans who call themselves Catholic but have long ago abandoned the Church to worship the great deity of New York Times.

If the Catholic Church was interested in being “relevant” to society, or even recognized positively by the general public it would have taken a different path. Only a handful of American Bishops shuffle nervously over what the American public might think of them. Rome couldn’t care less.

The Catholic Church is not interested in increasing the number of Catholics if the teachings it has held for 2 thousand years must be manipulated to accomplish this task.

The Catholic Church is what it is. It may have a webpage and twitter accounts but at the core it is the same religion that stood fast against Constantine over what the Emperor considered a minor theological minutia. It is American society which has mutated to something that is no longer recognizable by what the founding fathers have envisioned.

This is not about just Catholicism. Where are the Protestant communities which began the original colonies? Those who stood firm to their mission have either perished or barely surviving as quaint tourist destinations. If American society is on the right track, shouldn’t these communities at the very least be admired rather than mocked and harassed?

It is not the Catholic Church which must be examined for it failures, it is American society itself.

How odd to discuss the end of the “Catholic moment” in America and not even mention the decision of JPII to ban priests and nuns from holding office. The purpose, of course, was to cleanse liberals from the ranks, but you can’t convince me that replacing those public figures with the likes of Bill Donohue improved the Church’s influence over American culture.

[Note from Rod: Wait … what? You really think things would be improved if priests and vowed religious were allowed to serve in civil offices? Since when are you an opponent of separation of church and state? Besides, that was a worldwide ban, by no means inspired by cleansing liberals from office. I would think that given the Church’s history with worldly power and its corrupting ways, we would all welcome a papal decision of this sort, no matter what our politics. — RD]

I think a little more pushback on the Douthat piece is called for, though: the Catholic Moment he posits was, in my opinion, an illusion. Ronald Reagan did not win election in 1980 (when the moment Douthat is lamenting began) because he embraced Catholic social teaching, not in any way, shape, or form. GWB’s ‘compassionate conservatism’ was, in my opinion, always a sham, to be replaced the day after inauguration with Rove’s 51% doctrine. Nothing in the careers of GHWB, or Bob Dole, suggest some sort of Catholic moment. Or Bill Clinton.

I suppose one can lament that many Republicans apparently no longer feel that pitching compassion would work politically with their base.

I would submit that among a small but critical core of Catholics–lay and cleric–there is a vibrant orthodoxy that is very much influenced by the Christian humanism proposed by JPII and Benedict XVI. History tells us that such “remnants” can have a large impact in the long run.

The arguments for marriage as a life-long covenant between a man and a woman are not simply top-down “sacred” ones. Until about a decade ago, every culture had recognized marriage as being intrinsically linked to the complementary nature of the two sexes and the ability to procreate. “Gay marriage” is about neither. And this natural order also recognizes that a child is best raised by a father and mother, whose roles as parents are different but complementary.

[Note from Rod: Wait … what? You really think things would be improved if priests and vowed religious were allowed to serve in civil offices? Since when are you an opponent of separation of church and state? Besides, that was a worldwide ban, by no means inspired by cleansing liberals from office. I would think that given the Church’s history with worldly power and its corrupting ways, we would all welcome a papal decision of this sort, no matter what our politics. — RD]

I doubt you would have seen things as “improved” with the continued contribution of religious in government positions, considering who they were and what their politics were, but whether one likes the idea or not, whether one likes the politics of those forced to resign, one cannot deny that the influence of the Catholic Church declined when those people had to resign. And, yes, it was a world-wide edict, but it was aimed at liberals in the U.S. and even more so at leftists in South and Central America.

As for separation of church and state, there is no ban on participation in government by any other religion that I’m aware of — the ban having to be internal to the religion, as the government certainly can’t ban pastors from running for office. I suppose some other sects ban participation, Quakers I assume, Amish, perhaps Judaism (just because I can’t think of rabbi in office), but the only change I’m aware of in recent decades was the one forced on Catholic Democrats in the Congress. The problem the Vatican had with them is that they did understand the separation of Church and state and didn’t vote the way the Vatican wanted them to on social issues.

[Note from Rod: The Catholic ban was on the clergy and religious, not, obviously, lay Catholics. Besides Fr. Dornan, a liberal Democrat, which other Catholic priests, monks, or nuns had to resign in the wake of the Vatican edict? Do you really think this was a turning point in Catholic influence over public life? Really? — RD]

The arguments for marriage as a life-long covenant between a man and a woman are not simply top-down “sacred” ones. Until about a decade ago, every culture had recognized marriage as being intrinsically linked to the complementary nature of the two sexes and the ability to procreate. “Gay marriage” is about neither. And this natural order also recognizes that a child is best raised by a father and mother, whose roles as parents are different but complementary.

I’m not actually a fideist, and I agree that sacred ones aren’t the only arguments for traditional marriage. But they are the only ones with much force against the sacredness with which sexuality and the Self are seen by contemporary culture, which valorizes instinct and self-expression over reason and restraint.

Is it really the case that one could change the culture of out-of-wedlock childbearing by bringing rational arguments about why it’s a bad idea to the fore? I don’t think so. Perhaps that would work among a certain sort of cognitive and social elite, but for most people, “thou shalt not” is far more powerful than “here are the reasons you should not.” It was the case with me as a young man, when it came to changing my sexual behavior, and facilitating my conversion to Christianity. I had all the reasons why I should live chastely down pat — and they were good reasons. Ultimately it was realizing that God was real, and He meant what He said, and that He would hold me accountable for my unchaste behavior, that made me get serious about it, and about living as a Christian, as opposed to someone who enjoyed the aesthetics of liturgical Christianity and who desired the psychological comfort of religious belief (but who didn’t want to have to submit to the harder things, and who could easily find rationalizations for what I preferred to do instead of obey).

I quite disagree with George Sim Johnston. The “arguments for marriage as a life-long covenant between a man and a woman” are very new, culturally specific, and largely invented as an argument against same-sex marriage. Some of the data is ambiguous, but it’s clear that there has been sporadic examples of same-sex marriage throughout history (though not in any fashion that strictly compares to life in contemporary Western culture). We know, for example, that marriages between men were outlawed in the Roman Empire in the mid-fifth century. The French historian Marcel Lever wrote a book that discussed ceremonial same-sex unions in pre-Revolutionary France (these were not official, but their very terms stated that they were more real than their public marriages to their wives).

So when you say that “every culture had recognized marriage as being intrinsically linked to the complementary nature of the two sexes and the ability to procreate,” you’re simply incorrect. Cultures have done other things.

In the United States, the idea that marriage was linked to procreation seems to be a recent formulation used to argue against same-sex marriage. In the 70s, my grandmother remarried. She was in her 60s. I could only imagine her reaction if someone had asked about her intent to procreate. She had a hysterectomy not long after, so there clearly was no ability to procreate. Not much of an intrinsic linkage, if you ask me. At the time, it was explained to her grandchildren that she was remarrying because “they love each other very much.” That is why people get married.

Gay people want to get married because they love each other very much. Also marriage comes with it a package of problem-solving strategies we extend to married couples. When gay couples expressed the need for these solutions, opponents to same-sex marriage needed a better answer than “tough” or “so don’t be gay.”

Today’s New York Times has an article on binational same-sex couples. How do we answer their problems? Snort and say, “break up and find someone from your own country”? There has been a failure on the part of conservatives to listen to people’s problems and offer solutions (oh, this could go in a lot of threads).

Since neither “don’t be gay” nor “then just suffer” are honest attempts to address the problems gay people face, if one is going to claim that “the secular order must be dictated by the sacred order,” you still must answer these questions. And it cannot be by windy philosophizing, offering up justifications that neither solve problems nor hold water. What solutions do you have to offer, if you wish to withhold marriage?

Although a liberal, I yearn for the days when conservatives were proposing their solutions to the nation’s problems. So as not to wander completely off the topic of the post, if the Catholic Church truly wants a “Catholic moment,” maybe they need to look at the nation’s problems and tell us how Catholic thought will meet those problems. The same is certainly true of the Republican Party.

Re: Until about a decade ago, every culture had recognized marriage as being intrinsically linked to the complementary nature of the two sexes and the ability to procreate.

Well, yes– but until not that long ago every culture also recognized that one person could own another as property. I know that’s a hackneyed example, but you really can’t appeal to “what everyone has always done” as being an infallible guide to life because there’ s fair amount stuff we humans universally do that qualifies as foolish, counter-productive and even downright wicked. If “This is how it’s always been done” was followed to the letter, we’d still be living in caves, dressing in skins, and worshiping the thunder.

“Gay people want to get married because they love each other very much.”

Oh lordy! And why hould that be anybody else’s business? Why on earth should that be object of public policy? Go find a chpel/synagosue/templebeach somewhere and swear each other eternal love. Do you really think civil marriage was introduced because heterosexual couples love each other very much?

… until not that long ago every culture also recognized that one person could own another as property. I know that’s a hackneyed example…

Indeed it is. There is nothing intrinsic about any human being that identifies one as a natural born slave master, or a natural born slave. It is a condition that has to be created, and every slave culture has had to find some artificial means to identify the enslaved. In northern Europe, this was sometimes done by fastening an iron collar around those who were not free. In North Africa, slaves went around naked, and free people wore clothes. In North America, identifying slavery with skin color provided a convenient identifier.

On the other hand, the human race IS, undisputably, male and/or female. Each is distinct, and if there are odd in-between manifestations, these are identifiable as odd in-between manifestations of male and female, not as third, fourth, fifth, or sixth sexes.

Now, what the significance of this might be, reasonable women and men can differ about. But humanity does exist as male, and female.

“This is how its always been done” indeed signifies nothing of significance. This is fundamental to the nature of the human species is something else again. Marriage is NOT fundamental to the human species, but a culture, or a polity, or jurisprudence, might define marriage in terms of what is fundamental, and ignore all the outliers and odd mixtures.

Re: Besides, that was a worldwide ban, by no means inspired by cleansing liberals from office

My understanding was that it was aimed generally at leftists in Latin America, specifically the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, which included a couple priests in high office.

Re: Besides Fr. Dornan, a liberal Democrat, which other Catholic priests, monks, or nuns had to resign in the wake of the Vatican edict?

The aforementioned, D’Escoto and Cardenal in Nicaragua. As someone generally sympathetic to the Sandinistas, I don’t think it was the Vatican’s finest hour. Then again, I’m not a Catholic, so it really doesn’t matter what I think.

Re: I would think that given the Church’s history with worldly power and its corrupting ways, we would all welcome a papal decision of this sort, no matter what our politics. — RD]

Rod, your own Church allows priests and bishops to serve in government. Most famously, Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus was also that country’s President during the 1960s and part of the 1970s.

[Note from Rod: I can’t think it’s a good thing for a church to allow its clerics, monks, or nuns to hold political office, not so much for the protection of the state, but for the protection of the church. — RD]

(And yes, many would argue that Church-State ties in Cyprus weren’t a good thing, and led to the Turkish invasion and subsequent division of the island. Not to get into the argument here, but you can certainly make that case).

“A Catholic Moment” hardly and unlike some of the comments above, quite regrettable that it did not happen. The problem of course is that in America everything is reduced to politics and therefore the concept of something bigger or more important than the struggle over political issues is difficult to understand. That and the focus on self, whether intentionally for for purposes of survival has shouted over the whispers of Scripture that we concern ourselves with the welfare of our brother. This selfishness is reflected in our personal habits, our relationships to one another and our ability ot make and keep commitments – duties and obligations as some say. But frankly I do not see how we as a people are going to survive if we do not embrace life, liberty and the duties that go along with being a citizen. If we consider only the moment and do not consider the future, then the insight taught by the Church as to knowing the frailties of human nature will be lost upon us and we will be the worse for it. But I will encourage anyone with a modicum of courage to study the teachings of the Catholic Church and arrive at the conclusion that if all lived by such precepts, the world and her inhabitants would be much better for it.

Siarlys said: “On the other hand, the human race IS, undisputably, male and/or female. Each is distinct, and if there are odd in-between manifestations, these are identifiable as odd in-between manifestations of male and female, not as third, fourth, fifth, or sixth sexes.”

It’s not just the fact that the human species is two-sexed. The human species is heterosexual; and that’s how everyone is born.

This means that heterosexual couples can do something by themselves, without involving an outside party, that is absolutely essential for the survival of mankind, namely reproduce, while homosexual couples cannot. Infertility is a bug for heterosexuals; it is a feature for homosexuals – given how dysfunctional homosexuality is. This means that in nature, heterosexual and homosexual couples simply aren’t the same and they are by no means equal. In other words, mother nature is “homophobic” and reality is heteronormative. Homosexuals will never be equal to heterosexuals – unless, of course, homosexuals resolve their underlying psychological problems that cause them to be incapable of establishing intimate relationships with the opposite sex and are able to function heterosexually like they were born to function and like everyone else does.

In summary, the nature of humankind is two-sexed, not one-sexed, and upon this all past, present, and future generations arise.

Certainly civil marriage wasn’t introduced in order that couples could show their love. That’s just a major contemporary usage. No, the origins of marriage are pretty heavily tied to property law. This is something that middle-aged gay couples are probably more aware of than straight 20-somethings. I would never dream of asking a young couple to what degree tax, inheritance, community property and other financial issues played in their decision.

But if you’re fine with chapels, synagogues, temples, and beaches, let’s just throw in a few more and call it a deal. Specifically, court houses and city halls. I have no possible say at places where I am not footing the bill. If it is not my church, my synagogue (got one of those), my temple, my mosque, I can say nothing about whether they should join same-sex couples.

The court house and the city hall, those are mine too. It’s a different matter altogether. Besides, as I said before, gay people asked for marriage because it comes with a bundle of solutions. It’s not an answer to simply mock. It loses the argument, and deservedly so. Religious conservatives ceded the moral high ground on same-sex marriage.

Liberal Christianity is great stuff. On the one hand, you can enjoy all the pleasures of self-righteous denunciation as you condemn “churchianity” i.e. what almost all Christians believed prior to the 1960’s.

And on the other hand, you can also enjoy the pleasures of antinomian self-gratification. You don’t have to be either holy or humble, but you can blame traditional Christians for being neither.

You don’t have to apply your intellect to religion, you only have to go on feelings. But, at the same time, you can still talk about how stupid religious conservatives are. And, all the while, you can go on and on about what hypocrites traditionalists are. What’s not to like? What could be more American?

What is truth? I think that all human beings are trying to discover and live truth. Conservatives seem to be hellbent on brow beating the other side when it comes to truth. What is truth? The Catholic faith stands as the lone pillar of truth in the modern world. Sure, protestants have some of the truth but they have chosen to leave some of the truth. So the Catholic church stands alone. The fact is we currently have an administration that is involved, with the help of the media, in an on-going strategy of divide and conquer. And, programs of deception similar to other regimes across the planet who rule by fear and crisis. For example, the HHS mandate. This administration is hellbent on forcing all Americans to fund abortion services. They have manipulated the debate and used words that are half truths and outright lies and no one in the media is calling them on it. Why? They are part of the program. We are living in an era similar to past regimes of deception and mandate. Who is left to push back? Bishops whose office has been greatly tarnished by the sins of current and former bishops. The Catholic populace? They are as divided as the country because of the lack of holding to truth on both sides (conservative and liberal). Which side actually leads with all truth? neither. Look at the ten commandments and you will see the list of the sins of both conservative and liberals. Face it. We are living a time of great moral lapse that has impacted every institution in this country from religion to sports to education to government and so on. There isn’t a sector that hasn’t been impacted. There are no pillars in our society right now. Thus, we are quickly headed to destruction on all levels. The rug will be pulled out from under us soon unless people stop sinning and start living for truth.

I realize that there is not conclusive evidence for as to whether sexuality is innate or acquired. However, the weight of the evidence leans toward the innate side.

It’s sort of like the whole “smoking causes cancer” thing, where tobacco industry executives were making carefully parsed statements denying a link between smoking and cancer, even though the vast preponderance of evidence indicated a link.

The weight of evidence is on the side of that sexuality is inborn and unchangeable. The weight of evidence is that gay people are happy and well adjusted. It is not, on the basis of evidence, a pathology. Everyone has a sexuality; it’s just part of the normal human condition.

Denying this is certainly useful. If gay people could change, there would be no need to accommodate them. If homosexuality were a pathology, then there would be no need to accommodate gay people. But neither of those are true. And so, you’re going to have to accommodate gay people.

Hi Heather, I’m not contending anything. I’m not quite sure what I think about the whole issue.

From personal experience I have a hard time believing that homosexuality is a choice. I started crushing on boys when I was six and I can’t even bear thinking about making love to another woman. Of course, just because this is true for me doesn’t make it true for everyone.

You asserted that nobody is born homosexual and I just wondered what support you had for that. I might like to read it.

Oh dear, this whole subject has moved on to another post, but I find myself, at this post, in the midst of a complex five-sided argument.

JonF, I responded directly to your post. If you think I somehow “ignored” you, I don’t know how to explain it to your personal satisfaction. You offered a facile analogy to slavery, and I pointed out that its not a very good analogy. And you object to my “long riff about slavery” as ignoring your point about societal attitudes toward slavery being analogous?

Heather, I would agree that the human species is heteronormative, but not that all individuals are born heterosexual. The former statement seems to me well supported by commonly accepted scientific observation and data. The latter requires a good deal of psychological, physiological, and metabolic speculation on subtle matters we really don’t know much about — plus, probably, wishful thinking on your part.

Gay people may well be happy and well adjusted, as John D asserts, at least, it may be true that they can be when not subjected to social rejection and suppression. That could be true, without making any case that what they share constitutes a marriage, or is of any more significance to the species than any other statistical outlier.

Thus, I find JonF’s sarcastic analogy to the myth that all people are, or should be, right-handed, very much on point. As for Aristotle, he could be a bit of a tendentious fool at times, quite a lot of the time.

“You asserted that nobody is born homosexual and I just wondered what support you had for that. I might like to read it.”

Indeed! Well, I certainly owe you a book!! And hopefully it will be published in the future. I would like to co-author one, but it’s not going to happen too quickly.

So, for the time being, here is a quick take on it.

I asked why you thought that might not be the case in order to better explain certain points, depending where you are coming from.

I believe one of the main problems refers to the false opposition between inborn versus “free” choice. The problem with this false opposition is that it eliminates from consideration a very large and significant part of the mind that is neither inborn, nor chosen. There is a very important third sphere that is being left out and which is very real and which complements the other two.

A person is born with a developmental matrix, including to develop into a heterosexual adult that has healthy, adult relationships with the opposite sex. However, this matrix is not finished and it will change (including being deformed) in a variety of directions. Therefore, the mind has a deep plasticity; regarding many characteristics, it’s not hard-wired. Although you began to feel certain feelings about boys early on, if you had been abused or had had other deforming experiences, they could impact how your mind functioned regarding sexuality and the opposite sex.

So, a key point is that any person’s mind will develop conscious and unconscious mechanisms and dynamics that can deeply affect it later in life, which were not present when this individual was born.

This is why people are not born pedophiles, homosexuals, necrophiles, etc. Although there are different levels of choices regarding sexuality and one’s behaviors, no one with a particular sexuality dysfunction deliberately chooses all of its dynamics – and *especially* not the unconscious ones. Since when do you choose what goes on in your unconscious? However, this doesn’t mean we are helpless, little creatures with no free will.

So, human beings are born heterosexual, but they aren’t finished as infants. That means that a person’s mind will change and develop or degenerate in infinite ways. Homosexuality is similar to any other psycho-sexual dysfunction – in terms of being a dysfunction. It is not inborn, but like other dysfunctions, such a disorder or dysfunction is developed over time, due to a set of factors that can vary from individual to individual.

You solve the underlying psychological, cultural, sociological issues producing various homosexual dynamics in the mind of such an individual, and the person lives as they were born to be: heterosexual. It’s not a question of changing the blueprint, it’s a question of solving underlying issues that are preventing the person from relating to the opposite sex, or which are disorienting the person towards the same sex.